Michigan Governor’s Race Tests Flint’s Jaded Residents

FLINT, Mich. — The first car arrived around 3:30 a.m., more than six hours before the weekly “help center” opened at a local church. David Brooks, a 72-year-old retired General Motors laborer, was in the second car in the queue, and passed the time by sleeping in the back seat of his refurbished 1997 Chevy Santa Fe, as has become his Thursday routine since 2014 — the last time his Flint community trusted its water.

By 10 a.m., when volunteers at Greater Holy Temple Church of God in Christ began to distribute cases of bottled water to the gathered residents, the line of cars stretched more than a mile and a half. Inside the vehicles were parents whose young children have bathed in bottled water their entire lives, mothers who needed bottled water to cook food, and families still haunted by the prospect of disease and death, more than four years after the residents first sounded alarms about problems in their state-run water supply.

“They poisoned us,” Mr. Brooks said as he waited. He emphasized “poisoned,” the preferred word of residents keen to cast the crisis as a man-made calamity at the hands of state government.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said in April that Flint’s water was safe to drink. He ended the state distribution of bottled water and effectively declared that the city’s yearslong public health emergency was over. But here in Flint, where Mr. Snyder’s name is synonymous with villainy for many residents, his declaration has been largely ignored, and the crisis of unclean drinking water in the Great Lake state nicknamed “Pure Michigan” is very much ongoing.

Image

Trina Redner became sick from water contamination while studying at the University of Michigan-Flint.CreditBrittany Greeson for The New York Times

The emotional wounds are particularly tender this fall, as Michigan is in the homestretch of choosing Mr. Snyder’s replacement. Both candidates — the Democrat, Gretchen Whitmer of Lansing, and the Republican, State Attorney General Bill Schuette — have been longtime members of state government, a political universe almost uniformly hated among Flint’s residents. Both candidates have also attempted to make Flint and its recovery a centerpiece of their gubernatorial credentials. Yet for a community overrun by skepticism, their words can create discomfort, residents said.

“Our trauma is a talking point for their gubernatorial aspirations,” said Nayyirah Shariff, a Flint native and resident who leads a local activism group called Flint Rising.

The reason Mr. Snyder’s proclamation about safe water has been met with such derision varies from household to household. Some residents live in parts of Flint where water service lines still have not been replaced, or they cite contaminated plumbing inside their homes as a reason to keep using bottled water. Other families, particularly those who knew someone who experienced serious illness during the height of the crisis or had a health scare themselves, said it’s a matter of eroded trust.

In telling residents to have faith in their water supply, Mr. Snyder has cited scientists from the state’s environmental agencies. But Flint residents — many of whom now speak about water mains, lead contamination and Legionnaires’ disease with an expert-like ease — tune out the governor when they hear the name of the same state departments that once led them astray. They also point to new water problems in the state, including dozens of communities which have found contaminated substances called “PFAS” in their water supply, as proof the state has not learned its lesson.

Hey, I’m Alex Burns, a politics correspondent for The Times. Send me your questions using the NYT app. I’ll give you the latest intel from the campaign trail.

“How are any of us supposed to trust that our government is looking out for us at all?” said Trina Redner, a 48-year-old woman who became sick from water contaminated with lead while studying at the University of Michigan-Flint. “They lied to us.”

Ms. Whitmer has gone to great lengths to position herself as a problem-solver and a friend to the Flint community, and she cites the crisis as the principal reason she decided to run for governor. Mr. Schuette has led the state’s investigation into the state workers culpable for the water contamination, which has resulted in 15 public officials charged with criminal offenses that range from “willful neglect of duty,” a misdemeanor, to involuntary manslaughter, a felony.

“The families of Flint will not be forgotten. We will provide the justice they deserve,” Mr. Schuette said when announcing charges in 2016. “The laws apply to everyone, equally, no matter who you are. Period.”

Yet the best efforts of both candidates may not be enough to politically reinvigorate such a disillusioned community. Mr. Schuette, in particular, is seen by many residents and community leaders as an extension of the Republican administration of Mr. Snyder. Activists expressed outrage recently when they learned Mr. Schuette’s campaign had rejected an offer to participate in a debate with Ms. Whitmer in Flint — and one group recently held an anti-Schuette news conference in a neighborhood that still has water service lines that have not been fixed.

Image

Bill Schuette, Michigan attorney general and the the Republican nominee for governor, has led the state’s investigation into the state workers culpable for the water contamination, but is seen by some in Flint as an extension of the current administration.CreditDale G. Young/Detroit News, via Associated Press

Ms. Shariff helped lead that news conference, at which she read emails from 2015, when Flint residents repeatedly reached out to Mr. Schuette’s attorney general office seeking a criminal investigation into the contamination. Mr. Schuette did not agree to an investigation until later, when the national spotlight on the crisis intensified.

“Schuette was off duty,” Ms. Shariff said.

If Mr. Schuette wins, “it would mean the people of Flint mean even less to this state than we thought,” said LeeAnne Walters, a stay-at-home mother turned water activist who recently won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for her work.

Ms. Walters has 7-year-old twin sons. One of them, Gavin, still experiences growth problems because of the water contamination and is significantly smaller than his brother.

“It’s just natural for people to want to move out — or just say they can’t do it anymore,” Ms. Walters said. “You’re doing all of this on top of trying to fight against the government.”

Image

Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic nominee for governor, has gone to great lengths to position herself as a problem-solver and a friend to the Flint community but is having trouble motivating voters.CreditJeff Kowalsky/Reuters

Despite their distrust of Mr. Schuette, community leaders in Flint said Ms. Whitmer is having trouble motivating voters.

Flint is an overwhelmingly Democratic city, and turning out such urban communities may be the key factor in whether Democrats can wrest statehouse control from Republicans in a state President Trump narrowly won in 2016. However, even more than the usual voting barriers of long lines or registration difficulties, Flint residents are contending with extreme day-to-day challenges that, for some, make caring about the election more difficult.

“I’ve been a pastor for 55 years, and I’ve never seen such an atmosphere of hopelessness,” said Bishop Roger L. Jones, who leads of the Greater Holy Temple church where bottled water was being distributed.

“There’s absolutely no belief that things will get better than they are,” he said.

Flint is now a place divided, between the politically engaged and politically jaded, between black and white, and between those who are more connected to the wealthy institutions and the activists who prefer a grass-roots organizing model.

Image

Cars started lining up at 3:30 a.m. to receive bottled water at 10 a.m. from a donation site in Flint.CreditBrittany Greeson for The New York Times

The Rev. Chris Martin, pastor of Cathedral of Faith Ministries Church of God in Christ, warned Democrats not to take Flint residents, and their votes, for granted.

"We’re no longer lifelong Democrats,” Mr. Martin said. His church also distributes bottled water to congregants and residents. “Democrats have made promises, but have allowed urban centers to decay.”

Mr. Snyder’s administration has urged community and religious leaders to join the governor in declaring the water safe to drink, but most — including Bishop Jones and Pastor Martin — have rejected that call. Makeshift “help centers” continue to distribute bottled water at local churches three times a week. Disabled residents, who are allowed to skip to the front of the line, arrive through a city-run free ride service.

“People in Flint, more than any other city in America, understand that elections matter,” said House Representative Dan Kildee, a Democrat who represents the area in Congress. “What happened in Flint was the logical result of an election that put in place a philosophy of government that is based on austerity.”

At Greater Holy Temple Church of God In Christ and other help centers, volunteers said they have served up to 4,500 people daily — which would constitute 5 percent of the city’s total population. Still, it’s unclear how long the private and charitable donations will last, given the state is no longer supplementing the cost.

“I have no idea what we’ll do in the winter,” said Kevin Schram, a 61-year-old who, with a friend, waited more than six hours. Mr. Schram sought six to eight cases, about one-fourth of the 30 to 40 cases of bottled water his household goes through per week, he said.

When asked if they trusted that any state government, Republican or Democrat, would bring a resolution to the crisis, many residents expressed serious doubts. Keri Webber, who for years has delivered bottled water and other necessities almost daily to residents who could not procure it themselves, said she is wary the city will ever be the same.

“I’m not so sure Flint is the community they want to go out on a limb for,” said Ms. Webber, quoting an infamous internal email sent by an official at the Environmental Protection Agency more than 1,100 days ago, when the crisis was still new.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Candidates Make Their Case in Town Where Mistrust Runs Deep. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe